Following President Buhari’s decision to move the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) national conference and its Annual General Meetings (AGM) from Lagos to Port Harcourt, members of CILT Lagos branch stormed the Ikoyi national office of the institute to express their dissatisfaction with the move.
The Chairperson, CILT Nigeria Lagos Branch, Mrs. Fatima Diko-Kuton led the CILT Lagos members to protest at the CILT national headquarters in Ikoyi, Lagos last week.
According to Mrs. Fatima, the notice of change was too sudden for members who had concluded plans to attend the Conference and AGM in Lagos.
“This is an election year which requires a more careful and well calculated decision on the location and timing so as not to discourage attendance of members. As at now, the safety and security of people in Niger-Delta area, particularly Port Harcourt was not considered by the Council before arriving at this dangerous decision.
“Because of security challenges, Rivers state election was postponed indefinitely by INEC, some professional bodies that wanted to hold their programmes in Port Harcourt had moved such programmes to other areas of the country where safety is relatively guaranteed” she said.
Fatima noted that Lagos and its environs had about 90% of the total membership of the Institute, stressing there was no justification for the move. She also asserted that the move may be one of the ploys by the Presidency to manipulate the impending elections.
“We have authoritative information that the President has concluded plans to manipulate the election process in favour of some candidates. These so called loyalists have joined the President to pervert the cause of justice, equity and every sense of reasonableness” Fatima lamented.
Some of the protesters also accused the CILT Nigeria President, Major General Tudunwada Usman of being insensitive in deciding to hold the AGM in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Some of the placards read: “Usman, why is CILT Nigeria broke? Publish account of CILT”; “Enough of this dictatorship, we are not in the military barracks”; “Elections suspended in Port Harcourt due to insecurity, yet Usman want members to go to Port Harcourt”; “Going to Port Harcourt is a financial burden on majority of the members” and “Usman, let the philosophy of stronger together work in Nigeria”.
The conference had been scheduled to hold on August 5th and 6th only for CILT members to see an advertorial on the national daily 2 days before the programme that the event had been transferred to Port Harcourt.
Since the AGM is also a fee-paying programme and the protesters maintained that members in Lagos and its environs could generate enough funds to organize the conference and AGM.
“Members of CILT Nigeria Lagos Branch reject totally the movement of the national conference and AGM originally planned to hold in our branch in Lagos to Port Harcourt. The President is advised not to stick to this unpopular decision”, Fatima warned.
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